Mindjack’s Ian Dawe points to this Terry Gilliam interview, where Giliam reveals that the Miramax people refused to allow a nose prosthetic to be applied to Matt Damon. Dawe asks, “[Harvey Weinstein]’s willing to bankroll some of the greatest directors working (Scorsese, for instance), but treats them as if they were working in the old Hollywood studio system. Is this really the best that we can do by our filmmakers in 2005?” [More on Gilliam can be found in today’s New York Times, where Gilliam says of Hollywood, “If there was an Old Testament God, he would do his job and wipe the place out. The only bad thing is some really good restaurants would go up as well.” He also notes that the excellent actress Samantha Morton was replaced by Lena Headey.]
Category / Film
Mike Leigh’s Naked on DVD
Years ago, when I was a gaunt student, I had the opportunity to pick up the Criterion laserdisc edition of Mike Leigh’s Naked (one of my favorite films from the 1990s and one that you should watch immediately) for what was then a colossal sum: thirty dollars. Never mind that I didn’t own a laserdisc player. But I did conjure up some cockamamie idea about duping a VHS copy from a friend’s laserdisc. I demurred on my purchase, only to learn months later that the disc had gone out of print.
A decade has now passed since that fateful day. Never did get a laserdisc player, but I did get me a DVD player well before it was fashionable. And even though I later got the opportunity to interview Mike Leigh (who, go figure, was a major hardass in person), many tears were shed over the fact that this film, an unapologetic masterpiece, a brutally honest and almost Doestoevskyian depiction of a drifter (played brilliantly by David Thewlis) and the lives he seems to alter and disrupt (when in fact it may be other lives and class trappings that alter and disrupt him), never made the jump to DVD.
Until now. Come September 20, Criterion will finally release this brilliant film to disc. I’m not certain if the commentaries are going to be reflective of the laserdisc ones or freshly cooked up for the DVD. Either way, this film’s ballsy magnificence, multilayered characters and deceptively fragmented narrative cannot be overpraised. And if you have any cinematic awareness whatsoever and still have not seen this film, then I urge you to fill in this cultural gap immediately. Hell, if I run into you at Ameoba come September, I will put this disc into your hands and persuade you to buy it.
The film is one of those rare Rorschach tests that presents oodles of multilayered human behavior for viewers to parse. You’ll constantly question how characters relate to each other, why they relate to each other, and how they can even stand each other. And then you’ll find out more details about them and understand why. Maybe. Because in Mike Leigh’s universe, there are a lot of gray areas and certainly no clear-cut explanations. The reason the film’s characters are so vivid is that Naked is perhaps the summation of Mike Leigh’s filmmaking technique, which involves improvising and developing characters with actors over the course of six months and only then working out what the film is about.
Morning Linkage
I’m trying my best to post lengthy entries (and reply to the email backlog), but other obligations have kept me firmly bogged. In the meantime, here’s some morning linkage:
- David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College a few weeks ago. (via Scott Esposito, who has returned from Spain and has somehow managed to get the keys back from Dan Wickett)
- A whole-hearted congratulations to M.A.O. for being selected one of Time‘s 50 Coolest Websites.
- Ron Hogan has a modest proposal. Even though his idea doesn’t involve cannibalism, I did manage to cough up a few shellacs. Have you?
- I don’t know what’s stranger: the idea of six good reads to the sound of rain or the fact that this high-concept article came from the Tuscon Citizen. Riddle me this: when did Arizona journalists become cummulus experts?
- Tempo has announced the 50 best magazines for 2005. It’s safe to say that Beads Today and Anal Angels didn’t make the list.
- CNN explores Maine’s literary heritage, but one has to wonder why Stephen King gets more paragraphs than Longfellow.
- A new version of Sling Blade will be released to DVD. It’s 22 minutes longer. Remarkably, 19 of these minutes are composed of medium shots of Billy Bob Thornton saying “M’hmmm. Yup.” But there is now a three-minute monologue of Karl Childers extolling the virtues of “taters.”
- Yes, indeedy. Michel Houellebecq is a badass. (via Maud)
- And this compelling public access show may get me to rescind my eight year self-imposed ban on cable television. Here in San Francisco, we have a show called “Fantasy Bedtime Hour” that involves two nude women reading Stephen R. Donaldson’s 1977 novel, Lord Foul’s Bane, and other strange speculative fiction titles. I’ve always been a sucker for a nude woman reading to me in bed. I’ve also been a licker too. But then that’s probably TMI.
Primer
I have just seen the film Primer, and my head fucking hurts. But in a very good way.
Do I know what went on? Somewhat. What makes this film such a delight is how it can be viewed as both a left brain experience or a right brain experience. The left brain can soak up the multiple timelines and time travel devices (I believe there were at least four, but I wasn’t taking notes) and try to keep up. The right brain can relish in the confusion and accept the film as a parable for personal responsibility and young smart men who sacrifice viands and sleep to play god for their very deadly ambitions, only to discover that they unearth more havoc than personal returns.
For those still flailing in the dark (including moi), this timeline helps considerably. Shane Carruth, the young man who wrote, directed, produced, acted in, photographed and did several other things for this movie is definitely a talent to be watched. He shot this film for only $7,000. And Carruth’s wild ambition makes El Mariachi look like juvenile fluff. If you’re looking for an exciting, head-scrambling experience, the film is available on DVD. Joe Bob says check it out.
Roundup
- Because one can never cover too many awards, I note that Orhan Pamuk has won the 2005 Book Trade Peace Prize. The prize is the most coveted literary award in Germany.
- Alan Riding points to a quiet controversy that has been unearthed regarding women’s writing prizes (and the Orange Prize in particular). Specifically, novelist Anne Fine is quoted, “I do think the Orange Prize has created a division, an artificial barrier where there was only an awful inequality.” Perhaps the answer is much simpler. Could it be because Fine has never been longlisted for the Orange Prize?
- Super Size Me filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is entering the book industry. The first book is Don’t Eat This Book. The second one will be Slightly Smarter Though Still Stupid White Men.
- After years of relying on numbers cobbled together from disparate sources for our neighbor up north, publishers can now rejoice. BookNet Canada has introduced a new centralized sales-tracking system. This makes Canada the last English-speaking nation to do this. But the Globe and Mail‘s Kate Taylor is mourning: “At its most useful, it will let publishers stop guessing how many books they have really sold; at its most dangerous, it will draw them yet further into the pointless game of second-guessing their customers.”
- In Waynesville, MO, as many as 20,000 books from Waynesville school libraries are going straight to the dumpster. This remarkable idea comes to us from the mind of Superintendent Ed Musgrove, who is inflexible to donations because “it would cost more for us to pack them up and donate them than to destroy them.” It seems that despite the fact that other members and local residents expressed concern over this small-town homage to the barbarians who destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria, Musgrove stayed firm, revealing that the main factors being employed to remove the books are the copyright date and the subject. If you’d like to let Musgrove know how you feel about this, here’s his contact information.
- One amusing thing that’s come out of the ballyhoo concerning Edward Klein’s expose, The Truth About Hilary, is, as the BBC has reported, the listings over what other books the customers have bought. Currently leading the list is John E. O’Neill’s Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. Craig Shirley and Dick Morris are concerned that Klein’s smear approach will make Hilary Clinton a more sympathetic person and thus a more viable presidential candidate for 2008. Meanwhile, Klein himself keeps flip-flopping with his source (Or is it none or more than one? One never knows with this guy.) that claims that Bill Clinton raped Hilary to conceive Chelsea. [UPDATE: Ron Hogan has additional information about Klein, jumping off from this Publishers Weekly article.]